The war in Ukraine will turn Norwegian defense priorities upside down
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Hedda Langemyr
General Manager, Utsyn – Center for Foreign and Security Policy
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Terje Bruøygard
Colonel, professional profile in Utsyn
Three defense and security policy dogmas are about to fall.
Chronicle
This is a chronicle. Opinions in the text are at the writer’s expense.
President Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine challenges several Norwegian defense and security policy dogmas:
- The first is the notion of a Europe of deep and lasting peace.
- The other is that if Norway were to become involved in European war, it would be limited to Finnmark.
- The third is that war is solely a military activity.
The deep peace is over
After the Cold War, the prevailing political and military notion has been a Europe of eternal peace. It has characterized strategic thinking both in Norway and in NATO.
Norway and NATO therefore tried to establish cooperation with Russia. I NATO’s strategic concept from 2010 Among other things, NATO wanted to cooperate with Russia on missile defense and in the fight against terrorism, drugs and piracy.
Despite Russia’s attacks on Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, this Norwegian policy characterized quite recently. I The Hurdal platform, written in the autumn of 2021, the red-green government is very optimistic about improving cooperation with Russia. Even though Putin published only a few months in advance an article about Ukrainian-Russian unity.
It was not the fault of NATO or Norway to continue the diplomatic dialogue with Russia. But the idea of deep peace in Europe and our hope that Russia would approach us overshadowed obvious signals that Russia was moving in the opposite direction.
Although intelligence largely controlled all movements and forces prior to the invasion, few believed that Putin would attack. It was simply not possible to see – with Western eyes – what strategic goals he could achieve.
The Russian war machine has been ruthless, albeit with lower efficiency and quality than many had expected. The amount of military force Putin has used against Ukraine is formidable. Well over a thousand cruise missiles, perhaps as much as 60 percent of Russia’s total, in addition to huge amounts of artillery, grenades and bombers.
Europe is no longer at peace. It is difficult to imagine a complete victory for one of the parties. It is also difficult to envisage a peace agreement that will be accepted. The war can therefore last a long time and it can change form into an unresolved frozen conflict over time.
Europe has changed forever.
A defense for the whole country
What happens if Norway becomes directly involved in the war?
Norway has prioritized defense in the north. The debate has been mostly about Finnmark.
However, the Russians’ war in Ukraine has shown that they hit nodes and targets throughout the country. Although the bulk of missiles and air strikes have been aimed at the capital and other key targets ahead of the ground strikes, there have been Russian missile and air strikes against quite on the border with Poland.
There is therefore good reason to believe that if we were to end up in war with Russia, our own densely populated capital area and critical ports and airports in the south could be exposed to Russian attack.
The dogma that a war in Norway will be limited to Finnmark is therefore also about to fall.
It is no secret that we have a capital without air defense coverage
Then it is necessary to have a debate about the size, structure, structure of – and location of – Norwegian military defense. It is no secret that we have a capital without air defense coverage, and that strategic hubs in southern and central Norway are exclusively protected by a Home Guard without means against modern threats such as drones, air attacks and missiles.
The Armed Forces is today marginally present at sea, in the air and on land. So marginal that it must be allowed to question whether we have the required resilience, fighting power and endurance. Not least, we have obvious operational weaknesses – such as lack of air defense, missile defense, offensive maritime strike force and robust ground forces with modern tanks and long-range artillery.
The Civil War
The third dogma, that war is always military, has fallen.
The means of war are also civilian. Economic pressure, sanctions, import restrictions, a ban on Russian transport and calls – to name a few – hit hard. But it also has consequences for the sender. Civilians across Europe are now affected by the consequences of the war in Ukraine. The most obvious is how the extensive sanctions against Russia create major crises in the energy market.
The war also magnifies and intensifies a long-awaited food crisis, which could lead to new and large refugee flows from the south. The large price increase for electricity, fuel and food creates greater social differences across the continent. If the war continues, it will probably create a breeding ground for a lot of unrest and frustration in parts of the population in several European countries. Democracy is being put to the test.
The consequences of the information war must be dealt with far more aggressively than we do today
That test is enhanced by digital information writing. The war on social media paints such different realities, truths that are so far apart, that relationships break down and policy development becomes more difficult.
The consequences of the information war must be dealt with far more aggressively than we do today. It will require far more from civil society, including the media and politicians.
A new understanding of threats
Right now we do not have a defense that can defend the whole country and the population.
However, an expansion of our strategic immediate areas does not mean that we should reduce either the military or civilian efforts in the north. A breach of Norwegian-Russian cooperation can have major economic consequences for the population, and entail major challenges related to the management of natural resources. On the contrary, we need a renewed and stronger government involvement in the north as a result of the situation.
It is also a problem that we have not been able to expand our understanding of what modern warfare means. We lack a unified and coordinated apparatus to handle this. We need to revise our threat understanding and create a new civil-military security narrative, within the framework of the Nordic countries and NATO.
The next war could just as easily be civilian.